Portuguese identity, linguistic capital, and differential adaptation in postcolonial Macau

This paper examines how Portuguese nationals perceive and negotiate their relations with the Chinese majority in postcolonial Macau. Employing a Critical Intercultural Communication (CIC) approach, this study explicitly foregrounds Portuguese residents’ accounts and interpretations of interaction and investigates how they navigate identity negotiation, cultural boundaries, and power structures within a predominantly Chinese society following the 1999 handover to Chinese governance. A meta-theoretical lens integrates CIC with Bourdieu’s linguistic capital and Foucauldian power/discourse to situate interactional narratives within Macau’s institutional fields (law, education, labor markets, media). Using a critical ethnographic methodology, the research captures the layered experiences of Portuguese nationals as they contend with linguistic barriers, cultural separations, and legacies of colonial hierarchy that continue to impact social relations. Key findings reveal that while Portuguese nationals strive to preserve cultural heritage, they encounter a “glass wall” of language and cultural distinctions that reinforce social divisions–a wall sustained not only by linguistic difference but also by historically produced institutional arrangements and privileged expectations about who should accommodate whom. This study contributes to intercultural communication scholarship by examining how colonial histories shape contemporary intercultural dynamics, shedding light on the nuanced process of identity negotiation and selective adaptation within Macau’s postcolonial landscape.